My mom is my 3 A. M. phone call, my annual road trip buddy, the

“My mom is my 3 A.M. phone call, my annual road trip buddy, the connective tissue between my father, sister and me — and one of the funniest people I know.” — Brianna Keilar

In these tender and profound words of Brianna Keilar, we hear the eternal song of motherhood — not as a title of duty, but as a living force that binds, heals, and endures. Her statement, though wrapped in the simplicity of everyday affection, reveals the ancient truth that a mother is both anchor and flame, the quiet presence holding together what time and distance might seek to unravel. To call one’s mother a “3 A.M. phone call” is to name her as the keeper of comfort in the darkest hours, the one who answers when the rest of the world sleeps. Such love is not bound by convenience or clock, for the mother’s heart is ever awake — the eternal sentinel of her children’s well-being.

In ages long past, the poets spoke of divine mothers — Isis of Egypt, who reassembled her beloved Osiris; Demeter, who moved heaven and earth for her lost daughter Persephone; Mary, who stood beneath the cross and did not turn away. Each of these figures embodied the same truth that Keilar touches with her modern hand: that the mother’s role is not passive, but heroic. She is the bridge across chaos, the unseen architect of harmony, the connective tissue that holds a family’s scattered parts together. To the ancients, this bond was sacred — the invisible thread woven by the Fates themselves, binding kinship, memory, and love into one eternal weave.

When Keilar calls her mother her “annual road trip buddy,” the image is at once ordinary and divine. It is the journey that mirrors life itself — the laughter along winding roads, the wrong turns that become stories, the silence that needs no words. The road trip becomes a symbol of continuity: no matter where life leads, the mother remains beside her child, both guide and companion. The ancient teacher would say that every road is sacred when walked in love, and every journey becomes wisdom when shared with those who gave you life.

To be called the “connective tissue between my father, sister and me” is perhaps the deepest praise a mother can receive. The phrase reveals her as the living bond of family — not a separate force, but the spirit within it, holding it whole. The ancients saw this role embodied in the hearth, the sacred fire tended by the goddess Hestia, whose flame kept the home alive. Without her, the house grew cold; with her, the family had warmth and direction. So too does Keilar’s mother represent that sacred hearth — the one who listens, mediates, remembers, forgives. She is not loud, yet all things depend upon her gentle constancy.

And then, in the final line — “one of the funniest people I know” — comes the spark of humanity, the laughter that sanctifies love. Humor, in its truest form, is a mark of wisdom, a balm against sorrow. The ancients knew this too: that laughter and tears are born of the same place in the soul. For what mother has not turned her pain into light for her children’s sake? What mother, having endured the weight of years, does not learn to laugh at the world’s folly? To call one’s mother “funny” is to acknowledge her strength disguised as joy, the grace to meet hardship with warmth, to face the storms of life not with despair, but with wit and spirit.

History holds countless mothers who, like Keilar’s, shaped lives not through power, but through presence. Consider Abigail Adams, wife to one president and mother to another, who through her letters guided her son John Quincy with words of courage and restraint. She was never upon the battlefield, yet her influence moved nations. She, too, was connective tissue — invisible to the eye, yet essential to the heart of history. Such mothers remind us that greatness is not only found in crowns or titles, but in the daily acts of love that sustain and restore.

The lesson, then, is clear: honor the quiet heroes. Call your mother, not only at 3 A.M., but in the bright hours too. Take the road trips, even if they are short. Let her laughter echo in your memory, and when you find yourself the center of a family, remember the strength that once held you together. In this modern age of noise and distance, do not forget the ancient wisdom that lives in every mother’s heart: love is the true gravity of the soul — it pulls us home, even from the farthest reaches of the world.

And so, to the generations who follow, let this truth be spoken: to love one’s mother is not sentiment, but reverence. For she is the unseen architecture of our being, the first friend, the last refuge, and the eternal thread between what we were, what we are, and what we yet shall be.